


Lone Wolves

by acceloraptor



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Slow Burn, That AU where Hanzo never quits the Shimada Clan, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-13
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-07-23 18:12:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7474599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acceloraptor/pseuds/acceloraptor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Shimada-gumi extend their influence to America. A newly ambitious Deadlock gang isn't happy about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lone Wolves

The desert subtly pressed in the boy’s mind like the nose in front of his vision, and he followed it with something approaching reverence. His arms were held by his sides, his fingers gently curling; the eyes that beheld the sight in front of it gleamed with soft wonder.

He stood between two worlds, separated just as neatly as the uniform horizon. One was behind him, of aged houses, sagging, silent, except for the occasional rattling of windows. It was the cloying smell of starved grass, dirt streets peppered with the blue and green of shattered bottles, smooth and round from weathering.

The other he faced could not have been in starker contrast. It had no smell, sterilised by an unblinking sun. Any discerning feature to line its uniform grounds were promptly chipped and weathered into dust. It was a world where the only thing that stood was its very own foundation, ancient, timeless, and it shifted in hues from soft oranges to cold yellows — a mood-stone of its own kind.

Today, it was a striking red. The boy had caught the storm just before the setting sun was swallowed, and he was glad, for it was a rare sight. Red, contrasted by voluminous forms stained black and bruised purple. The unnatural stillness reminded him of midnight hours, sightlessly looking out the window, and finding tranquility within its quiet. He would remember the storm, tucking it in a sure corner of his mind, a source of solace for the years ahead.

The first breeze in many hours picked at his hair. His scratchy clothes stuck to him uncomfortably from the sluggish, recycled heat, but he resolved to watch and wait a little longer. He felt anticipation in a dissatisfied way, like a catch in his throat that he couldn’t quite get out, no matter how many times he coughed. He didn’t know why, and so blamed the heavy clouds in the easy way children did.

Eventually, he heard the distant pitter-patter of running feet.

“Jesse!”

He recognised the voice, and turned around to face a girl who was now doubled over, heaving for breath.

“Je-esus, I was looking everywhere for you.”

It was Danna, a kid just shy of nine, just like him. By law of proximity, to live door-to-door made for a friendship that clung persistent, even if the match meant a perpetual war of spitting and arguing. Luckily for them, the boy and Danna held a natural harmony like the interlocking of two joints of a hand-crafted machine. The boy could count the scattered freckles on her face, tell her presence just by the weight and rhythm of her footfalls.

His eyes crinkled in a smile. For a moment the back of his hair shone gold, framed against the black void beyond. It faded as a soft darkness enveloped them, the sun finally gone.

Danna was unperturbed by the sudden change in scenery.

“My ma wanted me to buy some groceries, for dinner,” she unclenched a clammy fist to reveal a scattering of notes and coins, “and I was-a wonderin’ if you wanted to come with me.” Her grin was unabashed, straightforward.

Jesse tucked his hands into his pockets, and confirmed that yes, he would like to. They had been strangely busy the past couple of of days, and he was glad to be with her again. 

He matched her step, paused, gave one final glance behind. The anticipation still tugged at his mind. The void, and the static that came with it. He thoughts snapped back when Danna took his arm. The desert grew smaller as they walked away, but the vast entity always remained.

———

“So I had to clean the house. The whole darned thing. You’re lucky you weren’t there, else she woulda made you do it, too.”

Jesse winced as he imaged the looming form, a figure of both iron will and strength, and it drew a chuckle from Danna.

Eventually their walk slowed to a stop in a non-spoken, shared consent. They were quiet for a while as they watched a bird of prey, an eagle of sorts, circle around lazily.

“By the way. She wanted me to tell you that you could join us for dinner. You and your ma, both.”

Jesse tried to push through the sudden strange lump in his throat.

“You know what she’d say. That we gotta take care of our own.” Jesse kicked a rock. He had been brooding on feelings of _unfairness_ over the past weeks, and it started to surface. “I reckon we get enough people helping in the crisis, considerin’ all the fuss they kick up. I reckon pa woulda made more of a difference here, than out there.”

Jesse continued, “he was darned stupid, leaving us like that. Leaving _her_ like that.”

“Yeah.” Danna’s hand tightened in sympathy.

“Anyway,” the first was mumbled, but his voice grew louder, “ma says he’ll come back, soon. I reckon she’d stop actin’ strange, when that happens.”

She nodded, and looked at him. Her expression held a hint of sadness, and Jesse stared in mild confusion. It would be a good couple of years before he realised what it meant, followed by a second realisation, of how slow he was sometimes. She tugged his arm, insisting. He followed.

As they neared the store, they sensed, rather than saw, that things were off-kilter. The pile of bikes, parked with ostentatious lack of care. The large footprints which dug into the earth.

Then, the sound. A loud crack whipped through the air, sudden in its entrance and exit.

Danna and Jesse faced each other, wide eyes mirroring each other. More out of instinct than anything else, they jumped behind an abandoned car which stood like a permanent fixture. Danna’s hands gripped his, and they stayed this way, rapid heartbeats almost in sync.

“You misjudged. Misjudged us, misjudged yourself… How embarrassing it must be for you.”

A chorus of laughter, greasy and hollow. Jesse counted three. He could hear the steady clink of metal; somebody was pacing.

“Look at me, _cabrón_.”

Jesse couldn’t make out the next words; he presumed they were mumbled to the man’s ear.

“Hah! You think I wouldn’t see that?”

There was a loud slap, and a groan. An object skidded and spun to a stop near the car’s wheels. Jesse eyed it, his heart leaping in his chest. It was a gun, which looked to be a pistol. Another punch, another groan. He stared at the weapon, his mind feverish from the ideas it filled his head with. The feeling bubbled in intensity as the beating continued, hating the way he felt so helpless; he shifted his body toward it.

“Jesse!” Danna hissed.

As his fingers closed around the weapon, he couldn’t forget how heavy and foreign it felt. Nothing like the movies; he was so damn _scared_. Coiling into himself like a drawn spring, he pressed against Danna, making his body as physically small as possible. The gun was cradled by his chest, useless in his hands; yet it offered a shred of comfort.

The groans of pain stopped as the victim slipped out of consciousness. The bikes purred to life, and the awful hollering faded. They sat there, completely still, for the rapid beating of their hearts persisted long after they left.

———

Two months later, Danna and her family moved away. They were not the first, nor the last. Jesse had stood by their unlit doorway, not quite believing. It wasn’t the fact that she was no longer here that made his heart as achingly bare as its rooms, no; it was the fact that she had given no warning, and left no note. Had he not been so incensed by anger, he would have noticed the way their leftover belongings were scattered. Rushed. Improvised.

The world moved on. Jesse's mother stood by her lonely fortress, and he abided. Against the crumbling and the ageing and the desert that incessantly beat at his mind, the static growing louder by the years, he abided. He was there for her as the city’s power outages became more frequent, and as more dogs filled the streets than people. He was there for her as she finally closed her eyes, finding the rest that she so longed for.

Sometimes he would walk far, into the peaceful void where the desert began, like he used to. Frayed on the edge, sinewy and weather-beaten, he almost looked part of the landscape. A wildness shone in his eyes, born from the need to survive. Even so, their corners were softened as looked out onto the landscape — people changed, the world moved on, but there were some things that remained inexplicably constant.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is more of an experiment in style. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
